The conventional practice of inspecting, packing and delivering maritime life rafts presents a potential security risk to the ultimate consumer in that raft containers can be easily tampered with in a manner to conceal potentially dangerous materials while the containers are en route to the consumer. Existing life raft containers are packaged at the manufacturer, opened and inspected annually by maintenance facilities and are secured only by external plastic or metal banding straps. It is possible for a terrorist to intercept a container in transit, remove the external banding straps, insert a weapon of mass destruction or high explosives, re-band the unit and return it to its transit point without anyone else ever noticing that the unit has been compromised.